This was my New Year’s scratchbuild challenge project. The only out of pocket expenses were for a bit less than $4 a mono audio jack and a stick of Plastruct for the siderods… everything else was leftovers from other projects or scrounged. I knew I wanted to do a locomotive. Kim has decided that Mother Hubbards are ‘cute’, and she has a birthday in Feb, so I decided to humor her. All I had parts for was an 0-4-0, but I just didn’t care for the bell or dome locations on the Reading A-4s or A-5s, or that mailbox headlight, either
so I decided to make the front section more like a Lehigh Valley 0-6-0
Jan 2. The brick is Kalamazoo, I think. It was bought for another project, but the wheels were too big. The cylinders are Delton, left over from the Stainz Mallet project.
Jan 3… Or techically very late the night of the 2nd. Coffee stirrers! (what else? lol)and that 99c piece of styrene box.
Jan 3. after work the following evening. The cab is Delton, the boiler is sections of Delton mixed with a the leftovers chunks of Scientific cheeser that I was going to throw away, but missed the trash can…
Then I spent the next few days looking at pictures, rooting through junk boxes, and generally trying to decide how I was going to do stuff. Jan 6. Sand dome is a cut down pvc pipe cap, steam dome is Delton, rear half cab is the rear part of an Aristo 0-4-0 cab
Jan 8. A homemade air pump (2 tiny spools)
Jan 8 part II, Those injector lines were a pain in the butt! (all I had was steel wire)
Jan 11, Early morning. Finally bit the bullet and found a broken number from the old price sign at work. Tender frame
Jan 11 part II, a bit after lunch. Plexi sure STINKS when you cut it with a Dremel… Yes, those are old auto wheel weights inside it.
Jan 12, Mid-morning… fresh from the paint shop. Too bad it’s not going to stay pretty!
Jan 12, Just after work. A little 3 part spray bomb weathering…
Jan 12, Evening, actually only 98% done (still need to solder the tender pick-ups and fit a rear pilot step), but good enough to show.
So what IS an anthracite road switcher doing in Western Pa? I decided on this plausible backstory… In the Fall of 1942 traffic almost doubled on the AV, mostly due to increased demands by the government for coal. A heavier locomotive was needed to handle switching chores at the mines… Except, due to the wartime motive shortage, this rather ‘goofy looking’ thing was the only one available from the Philadelphia secondhand dealer that was short and nimble enough to stay on the old wobbly rails of the mine spur. It’s oversized firebox made it easy to fire on cannel, boney and tailings, which made it cheap to feed. So even after the war, when traffic slowed down to previous levels, it was kept on. Besides, I kinda like it.
